Comedy-horror film spoofs restaurant life, screens this week

Anyone who has worked in a restaurant knows things.

They know what it means to 86 an ingredient.

They know a simple pen is a shift commodity more valuable than gold.

They know the torture of double-shifts, triple-seatings, deep-cleans and crying in the walk-in.

They know about Karens, those pesky, particular women who ask to substitute, delete or alter every, single, menu item.

Only those who have worked in food service truly understand the language and culture that make workers tick, laugh or empathize. Thus, the restaurant world is rich fodder for insider humor.

Comedian, writer and director Ken MacLaughlin knows this. He spent 15 years waiting tables and has crafted many comedy sketches set in restaurants.

“The Bitchy Waiter” brand alone had gained roughly 600,000 fans in its first nine years, MacLaughlin recalls. After MacLaughlin began contributing film content, its audience grew, today totaling roughly 1 million Facebook followers and 10,000 blog subscribers.

The success of their partnership, plus a push from a third partner, film producer Michael Sokol, spawned the idea for a new project: a full-length, horror-comedy film called “We’re So Dead.”

Writer and director Ken MacLaughlin instructs actors on set for "We're So Dead." The comedy-horror film shot at a defunct restaurant in Dunwoody that now houses a Korean BBQ joint.

Before they got to work on the full film, Cardosa, MacLaughlin and Sokol published a short teaser to measure audience interest and raise funds. They set up an online tip jar and were shocked when they raised $10,000 with some donations in the hundreds.

“The money was great, but more importantly it was like, ‘Wow. These people really want this movie,’” MacLaughlin recalls.

Following the online tip jar campaign, the team started a campaign on WeFunder, a platform that allows individuals to invest in projects they believe in with the hopes of earning dividends later. Bartenders, line cooks, servers and dishwashers helped fund the film and will share in its profits. According to WeFunder, the campaign raised $124,000 from 272 investors.

“We were recruiting mostly from people making $2.13 an hour,” Sokol said. “So it was important to us that … everybody who participated was able to be an investor.”

The nonprofit connects food service workers with resources such as mental health support, housing and substance abuse recovery, plus provides emergency financial assistance.

“It’s a film for the service industry, by the service industry, benefiting the service industry,” said MacLaughlin.

The film’s plot is cheeky.

It’s Christmas Eve. The servers are dressed in festive holiday costumes prepared for a large reservation to arrive. When the party calls to cancel, the dining room at O’Kane’s sits empty. The restaurant, as the saying goes, is “dead.”

Things get crazy on the set of "We're So Dead," a comedy-horror film about a murderous Karen who causes violent chaos at a restaurant on Christmas Eve.

A blonde Karen appears at the bar, wearing a hideous red headband and pearl earrings. Unbeknownst to the staff, she is carrying a bejeweled gun in her purse. She orders a syrupy tropical cocktail and slurps it loudly through a straw. Her complaints throughout the evening escalate into violence.

What unfolds is a mashup of service-industry satire and slasher spoof. The slowest shift of the year spirals into a night of blood, absurdity and survival. The staff must band together against their unhinged customer in a battle that plays out between the dining room, kitchen and bar.

MacLaughlin sums up the film well:

“One psycho with a reservation and a bloodthirsty agenda flips the whole place into a five-course feast of fear,” he writes. “From the minds of real-life restaurant lifers, this twisted horror-comedy turns the front of house into a battleground, the walk-in into a war zone, and the POS system into a portal to hell.”